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New part for Crane Dial-Ese bathroom faucets improves hot water flow

I am so very happy to live in a world where people make videos like this. I love the 21st Century — and moreover, I love our readers — like Daniel — and our advertisers — like deabath.com — who keep coming up with ways to make life with our vintage bathrooms, et.al., more better always.

What is this object of my geeky affection? It’s Daniel’s 11-minute video that (1) happily discovers the new ceramic valve stems now for vintage Crain Dial-ese bathroom faucets and (2) showing us how to install one, all zippety-do. I even understood it ALL, except for the one bit about flushing the stems or some such at about 7:15.

The amazing Daniels wrote to me:

Howdy, Pam. Hey, they’ve done it again at DEA Bath — come up with a terrific and much-needed item: new quarter-turn ceramic-disc cartridges for the very popular Crane Dial-Ese faucets. WOW, I’ve been waiting years for these. They are a giant improvement over the original type valve. I’ve made a show-and-tell video describing the advantages of the quarter-turn cartridge over the original type, and showing how to service the faucet. My 1950 Crane sink, green Vitrolite washroom wall, and Formica counter top are all visible. Please feel free post this video if you’d like to.

All best,

-Daniel

Thank you, Daniel! Hmmm…. I think I need to launch an annual video award. Right now, you are #1 on the list!

And remember, readers: If you have vintage Crane faucets — deabath.com is this go-to place for fix-it help!

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Comments

How timely! My husband and I just purchased two Crane Drexel sinks and ordered the period accurate reproduction faucet handles from DEA Bath. Perhaps we will take things a step further replacement-wise now that I’ve seen this video. Thank you for sharing.

Interesting and useful – I have two slant-back faucets in the upstairs bathroom and we replaced them with new faucets (the old ones were not salvageable) – they work great but they have metal stems which have the exact same issue with you run the hot water. I was curious why it was happening…this explains it! I wonder if we can get quarter-turn ceramic stems for those types of faucets too. Will have to check.

What a great video! Hats off to you, Daniel. Having just helped my husband put in a new toilet yesterday, I know the importance of visual instructions to a proper installation of anything. And I like the way you explained the reasons behind the problems with the faucet valve. Also, I like your sink. May you have it another 60 years.

Is it possible that the self-closing feature on the hot-water valve was by design to keep people from scalding themselves as the water got increasingly hotter? I’m sure we’ve all had experienced this, and have had to re-adjust the flow manually, no matter whether the valve is single or dual lever.

Thanks once again for a truly useful piece of advice.
I have a 1953 home in Palm Springs and have 4 sinks with the old crane valves. I will definitely invest in these great new valves. The how-to video makes it simple to change the valves your self. I love your site and am grateful that you share time and passion with us. J.R.

I don’t mind the hot water adjusting, but the drip is driving me crazy. Even in your video there is a small drip after you replace it. Will the ceramic cartridge make the drip go away? I’ve replaced the o-ring and the gasket.